Ballmer: United, We’ll Stomp on Linux

Linux is the only serious threat to Microsoft’s increasing dominance of the market for server operating systems, according to new research from IDC. Although Microsoft cannot compete against Linux on price, the company will use its community of professionals to outsmart the open-source movement, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) in London on Monday.

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93 Comments

2002-09-24 5:06 pm

Sounds like a challenge to me!

2002-09-24 5:14 pm

According to the article:

>> The big issue there, he said, was a reluctance

>> to accept legal liability for open-source software.

Hahaha!! As if Microsoft accepts any kind of practical liability for any of its products! Have you ever read the Windows licence? It practically says something like: “if windows destroys your computer and kills your great grand father, that is your business!!”

2002-09-24 5:16 pm

I cant beleive with the state of their EULA that they had the balls to bring recourse or liability into it. In the article i read at CNET they stated that customers want soemone to be held liable.. But as far as i can tell from reading MS’s eula for windows (2000) they have no resposiblity or do they even guaruntee that their product will work and if it doesnt they arent responsible. Six in one hand Half a dozen in the other.

2002-09-24 5:20 pm

From what I know, all the commercial and a lot of OSS licenses say that. The author never wants to be responsible for any bugs that might do something to your system. Because, legally speaking, without this clause, even the smallest, insignificant bug can bring the author to the court. So, this is not an Ms license clause, it is everyone’s clause. Programs who do not write that, their authors just didn’t put lots of thought.

2002-09-24 5:20 pm

since when have Microsoft been in the software industry? They are in the license selling industry so comparing this to software you OWN when you install Linux is laughable.

I like the way he tries to scare commerce with “nobody pays for software on Linux” – um, so what? Not paying for software but owning it instead can give you the competitive edge over those who pay for licenses every two year upgrade cycle …

2002-09-24 5:22 pm

This is what my ex-boss writes for his (DOS/Windows) software.

LIMITED WARRANTY

THESE PROGRAMS AND ACCOMPANYING WRITTEN MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NEITHER THE AUTHOR NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION OR DELIVERY OF THIS PRODUCT SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE SUCH PRODUCT EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

And he actually copied it from other licenses he found on some programs. From what I have seen, ALL the software I have installed lately, they include similar clauses. In other words, stop being unfair to Ms. I think that even GPL programs write something similar.

12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

It seems that you Linux promoters, never read the GPL licesnse yourselves.. but no, it is easier to troll about Ms.

Stop being unfair to Ms and get them down in every way you can, just for the fun of it. Kick their asses where they need to be kicked: in some of their business practices. Not on their legal rights or their right to innovate.

2002-09-24 5:30 pm

i dreamed i could actually bill ms for all the down time windows has ever caused me!

2002-09-24 5:30 pm

Even StarOffice, sold by Sun, was originally a free product, he said.

StarOffice started as a commercial application for Windows and OS/2 from StarDivision, Mr Ballmer.

2002-09-24 5:32 pm

Nobody can test their product on every kind of system using different hardware, operating system versions, different driver versions, a set of most common used applications, using different environment settings…

You should even try different test runs while running all kind of applications. Your tests would take a few years. Then you *COULD* take responsability because you just tested *ALL* possibilities…

2002-09-24 5:39 pm

The point is not the liability, but that Balmer would have the nerve to bring liability into the discussion. He says that OSS does not come with any liability, well then neither does MS software or most software vendors.

Now MS supports their product, but of course you pay for any real support. Well you can pay for real support with OSS.

The point he makes is no real point at all.

I think the latest vulnerability with SSL in Konqueror and IE illustrates the point well. The KDE League fixed it in a few hours. I am not sure, has MS fixed the IE Problem yet (Is suppose the delay is because they can’t work out if its in the kernel or the app).

It seems that OSS is mor reliable than MS, at least in this instance.

2002-09-24 5:40 pm

>> From what I have seen, ALL the software I have installed lately, they include similar clauses. In other words, stop being unfair to Ms..

Stop being unfair to Ms and get them down in every way you can, just for the fun of it.

>>

How about writing MS and telling them to stop kicking their competitors in every way they can? When the CEO of Microsoft says “Nobody wants to accept liability for Linux”, the obvious and intended implication is to say that “Unlike Linux, Microsoft takes liability for Windows and other MS products, which is an important reason why you should prefer our products to Linux”.

As you pointed out however, the liability that MS takes for its products is, for all practical purposes, not any different from what you get from other products, be they open source or commercial. So as usual, Balmer is just trying to use FUD and Scare tactics to discredit a competing product, which is why some of us must point out the lie.

2002-09-24 5:43 pm

Reluctance to face legal liability?

I like that.

2002-09-24 5:47 pm

> It seems that you Linux promoters, never read the GPL

> licesnse yourselves.. but no, it is easier to troll about

> Ms.

The difference is that Balmer *knows* what his EULA says, and yet *still* makes that comment at the end of the article.

It’s as if he’s saying, <em>Don’t use OSS because you could be liable for any damage it causes! Oh, what’s that? You’re liable with our software as well? And everyone else’s too? Who told you that?</em>.

It’s the same old MS misdirection.

2002-09-24 5:56 pm

As far as the EULA is concerned, you are all correct in stating that MS has no expressed or implied warrantee about the function of software it sells.

That said, I would now like to point out that Microsoft DOES staff a 24/7 support desk with the goal of answering customer questions and addressing their issues with software. The closest thing to this in the free software world is newsgroups, and you as liable to get your head bitten off in there for asking a stupid question as to have a friendly, direct response.

While Microsoft does not contractually obligate itself to support every product it sells, it does in practice support these products. I personally have dealt with customer feature requests and bug reports filtered down through the layers of support personnel which eventually come to rest in the product groups themselves. A significant amount of the work done in any Microsoft product is based on direct customer feedback.

Thousands of people are employed at Microsoft solely for the reason of suporting customers using it’s software. If there was no intention of supporting the software, it would be pointless to spend millions (yes millions) of dollars on salaries for these people; and of all the things MS does, making business decisions which are poor monitary propisitions is not one.

2002-09-24 6:17 pm

Well, I’ve heard lots about M$ need for the freedom to innovate. Can anyone list any “innovations” that came from them. From what I’ve read over the years, they’ve excelled as co-opting, copying or purchasing the work or ideas of others and refining it.

While that has worked very well for them, that’s not what I call innovation.

So, help me out here: What has Microsoft created?

2002-09-24 6:18 pm

“That said, I would now like to point out that Microsoft DOES staff a 24/7 support desk with the goal of answering customer questions and addressing their issues with software.”

So does Redhat and SuSE and IBM. And actually you arent really calling MS with a problem. You are calling a call center in Ohio. The same is probably true for Redhat and Suse. So thousands of peopel may be employeed to support LInux. whats your point. THe both have support offerings,, Linux’s tends to be cheaper. and free for the first 90 days (suse anyway) unliek MS…..

2002-09-24 6:19 pm

(My$tic TaCo) This is bull! Please do some research before you bable about things you have no clue on! Every Commercial Linux distribution offers support for Linux. Even for desktops like Ximian, there is support if you pay for it.

Besides the topic is not about support but Liabily. Sheesh! are you one of the M$ support staff.

A significant amount of the work done in any Microsoft product is based on direct customer feedback.

You forgot to mention ‘indirect customer feedback’ — you know what I mean – spyware! Even the latest EULA virtually says that if you catch them spying, they can not be sued.

2002-09-24 6:20 pm

I suppose that Redhat, SuSE, Caldera, TurboLinux etc do not offer support desks. I think I already made that point above.

Anyway with an OSS solution you get to choose your helpdesk.

2002-09-24 6:22 pm

>That said, I would now like to point out that Microsoft DOES >staff a 24/7 support desk with the goal of answering customer >questions and addressing their issues with software. The >closest thing to this in the free software world is >newsgroups, and you as liable to get your head bitten off in >there for asking a stupid question as to have a friendly, >direct response.

>

>While Microsoft does not contractually obligate itself to >support every product it sells, it does in practice support >these products.

I suppose Ballmer is also correct in the you get what

you pay for line he gave a while back too… the difference

is that you _pay_ to call M$ after you have _paid_ for

the software…ops, I mean, License. Ok, so questions like

“how do I log into my box?” when linux says “login:”

could get your head bitten off in a newsgroup, I have

seen/read/responded to many questions myself and have

seen others do likewise for me/others. BTW: you can call

RedHat 24×7. Sure it costs money, but when was the last

time you called M$?? If you don’t have a (costly) support

contract they charge you (practically by the minute).

2002-09-24 6:27 pm

Eugenia, care to further explain how “we’re” trolling about MS by pointing out that Ballmer is intellectually dishonest in his argumentation?

Come on! It’s simply amazing that someone would miss the point _entirely_ like you did, so really, it looks like _you’re_ more of a troll than anyone else in this thread.

2002-09-24 6:27 pm

How can a company trust Microsoft any more with all their bugs and security issues. Having to patch and plug every other day, cost companies so much downtime.

Microsoft will never be taken serious in the backend because of their cloaked code. Would you want the air traffic controllers to use NT servers? How about life saving equipment? Financial Markets? Trading markets? Money Transfers? Come on, you all know Windows is a client OS. That’s it.

Their code is so polluted and so weighted. I hope the 5,000 more researchers and programmers will only contribute to their own size that they will fall hard.

“knife the baby” is new slang in Redmond. Never forget M$ wants kill to ANY competitor. Any dictator will kill any opposition. That’s why he is a dictator. Competition means research and progress… without competiton no progress at all.

2002-09-24 6:56 pm

Hey Ballmer, it’s attitudes like yours that drives our wonderful Linux community, and you are only providing fuel to the flame…Sure, we don’t have Billion upon Billions in R & D, but our devs and the community in large innovates and invents because we enjoy it, we’re not doing it just to collect a paycheck like your devs…and by the way, there is profit in Linux, if a person/company so chooses to take that route…

2002-09-24 6:59 pm

Microsoft has a long history of illegal business practices. They continue these illegal practices, even ramping them up, as they have never suffered any consequences.

There is substantive evidence, gathered over time, showing there is a union of the two towers, Redmond and Washington D.C.

From the early days of giving the NSA backdoors into NT crypto to the current days of DRM monitoring and installing “Magic Lantern” governmental monitoring software on your system, Microsoft has always been a friend of the government and an enemy of the people.

We are talking about a company that is thoroughly unethical. Witness Ballmer’s continual lies about Linux and the GPL. All those lies are not the mark of an ethical company. And Ballmer’s lies are just the very tippy top of Microsoft’s corporate doublespeak iceberg.

The illegal business practices and lack of ethics are the hallmark of a company that is culturally bankrupt. Their only mission is to kill every competitor in sight. They are more a military force than they are a software company. They respect no laws, no people, no way of life other than to forward their own greed.

And they ship the world’s most unsafe operating system.

In terms of bugs and problems that cost your business time and money, there is nothing that compares to the schlockware that Microsoft offers.

In terms of information security, it spies on you. IT SPIES ON YOU! In more ways than one.

Microsoft steals your data and gathers information about you without your knowledge or permission.

And it just gets worse from here on out.

If you have to run Windows, make sure it cannot get out to the Internet.

If you don’t need to run Windows, my advice to everyone is get a Mac or get a Linux box. Do not ever buy a Windows box. You are putting your life and/or your company and/or your nation at risk. And you are supporting the work of an evil company.

It is no accident that more nations are switching off of Microsoft and onto Linux these days. They have found out about Microsoft’s spyware and do not want any part of it.

As a company that has been proven by the courts to be a monopoly, Microsoft has no right to force their software onto the public. The remedy for Microsoft’s massive market power is what needs attention now.

Microsoft’s “freedom to innovate” is just a sham, some slime that their PR firm came up with. The true version would be “freedom to steal, cheat, and abuse”. That is what a monopoly does, forcing the market to adopt their technology as there is no real choice.

So much for “innovation”. What a lie.

So that the future of humanity is not lost in darkness, it is time to give up Microsoft, let go of their hold over us and go a separate way. The entire future of computers being good for people depends on getting away from the evil talons of the Microsoft evil empire.

#p

2002-09-24 7:03 pm

The DHCP comes from Microsoft if I remember well.

2002-09-24 7:03 pm

Why must you keep making excuses for MS. Ballmer uttered BS about “liability”, a bunch of people call him on it, and then you rush in to try to divert the subject to “everybody limits liability”

YES, BUT NOT EVERYBODY PRACTICE FUD ON THE LEVEL OF MS. STOP APOLOGIZING FOR IT

2002-09-24 7:23 pm

To me, it is not what Ballmer actually said, but it indicates to me that Microsoft doesn’t like what’s going on with Linux. It has proven itself on the server side and the desktop is coming ever closer (especially with what Redhat is doing). I’m sure any company would try to do something to put the brakes on a fast, up and coming competitor…make claims as to why their products are superior, etc. That is all I see Ballmer doing really. But, it does tell us something – Microsoft is offically taking Linux seriously.

2002-09-24 7:24 pm

The DHCP comes from Microsoft if I remember well.

At first I heard the same as you from a magazine, but after reading the RFC of DHCP and finding no mention of Microsoft, I’m not very sure about that.

Though this could be getting off-topic, could someone with more knowledge on the issue enlighten us? I’m pretty curious, cause it was the first time (some time ago, I mean) I heard about MS creating an open standard.

2002-09-24 7:25 pm

I would be fun to watch Microsoft push the liability issue. I wonder how many billions Microsoft would owe consumers should software liability include all the past problems consumers have been stuck. Like for example Win98 first version…you know the one. The version where they duct taped and baling wired Internet Explorer into the OS. You know…the browser that was supposedly inseperable.

Actually, under capitalism, Microsoft is the epitome of SUCCESS. It is the #1 corporation on the planet with the top market cap of $500 Billion, as most everyone here knows.

FOR EVERY FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION, THE WHOLE POINT OF ITS EXISTENCE IS TO BECOME A MONOPOLY, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. UNDER CAPITALISM, THIS IS THE PRIMARY GOAL OF EVERY CORPORATE ENTITY IN THE SYSTEM, LIKE IT OR NOT.

For crying out loud, didn’t anyone here play that Parker Brothers boardgame when they were young? Oracle, Sun and IBM would LOVE to be in Microsoft’s position right now, and don’t kid yourself that Larry Ellison (or any of the others) is somehow more ethical than Bill Gates. For example, take the reputation that Oracle’s sales force has within the industry. They are well known to be worse thugs than Microsoft by anyone who has ever dealt with them – and their motto is “We eat our young.”

If you thoroughly despise Microsoft so much then maybe you should take a closer look at the capitalist system itself as it is currently constructed (it is nothing more than a global, glorified pyramid scheme the way it works right now) rather than blaming them for being so successful within it.

2002-09-24 7:49 pm

yes, Microsoft is a success as a business, but money is only one judgement of success. Some businesses make theire motto “Help teh people and profits will follow” I am sorry I cant name the compoany sicne I forgot what it iscalled, but it is one of teh drug companies.

Yes, all other companis would lvoe to be in Microsoft’s shoes. Some differences are taht we are in teh here and now and that is teh difference. Part of taht, IBM is helping with Linux and otehr things which is helping the community. yes, tehy have for profit motives, but tehy are still doing it.

Also, I absolutely hgate it when people talk about the anti-trust suit and say they are just punishing microsoft for being successful and that otehr companies do excatly what microsoft does. So what if otehr companies do it, as a monopoly you have a special ethical and even legal (reason for anti-trust) responsibility which is meant to stop a company from leveraging their monoolu from using it to break into new markets. Its meant to support competition which gives a better/cheaper product for teh customer. people say, Look where Microsoft is now, the custoemrs arent hurt. yes, microsoft has done good, and I give them thansk for that. The problem is that you cant tell what it owuld be like if MS didnt break the Anti-Trust laws, so you cant tell whether the customer was hurt or not.

2002-09-24 7:53 pm

but Ballmer makes me laugh everytime he opens his mouth. The Improv ought to hire him for a week to perform at all of their comedy clubs. Just imagine the packed houses as no one but CEO’s, middle management, and the fanatical Microsoft fan pack the house to hear the Ballmer Schtick everynight.

I SMELL A SUCCESS!

2002-09-24 7:58 pm

If you are a linux advocate, act like Linus, act and think reasonably.

Many times I see that people love to amuse themselves, even the ones who are so called linux geeks. They are supposed to be intelligent, reasonable people who can understand certain issues, evaluate them and reason about them. But no, there is no difference between them and an average joe windows user, or a mac user. They are all the same. They have no idea what they are talking about.

Take one example. A user claims that, MS should accept liability for its products. Apparently this user doesn’t know the very basic fact that, without that clause in the software license, no software company can survive. As a matter of fact, nobody can write software. Also there will be no linux either. The user just tries to amuse himself/herself by concentrating on MS only and omitting everythingelse, as if MS is the only company in the wolrd which uses that clause in its products.

Also someone claims that MS is pushing the liability issue. By a simple logic, one can easily understand that this is impossible. This can not be the case, either someone distorts what MS says, or it is a simple misunderstanding. But still, people want to believe that this is the case, because they hate MS so much that, they want to catch MS in act. The problem is that, this act of bashing MS became so

stupid, so stupid that, now it looks like people who bash MS started to look like fool themselves. Think about the latest allegations done by a group which is supported by Microsoft’s competitors. Even the MS’s number one haters stated that these are stupid allegations, though there were still guys around who thought that the allegations are right.

2002-09-24 8:05 pm

> And he actually copied it from other licenses he found on some programs.

(Do licenses have copyrights?)

> i dreamed i could actually bill ms for all the down time windows has ever caused me!

I dreamed I could actually bill people for all of my time that they have wasted with stupid, anti-MS messages. But then I awoke. *sigh*

> Eugenia, care to further explain how “we’re” trolling about MS by pointing out that

> Ballmer is intellectually dishonest in his argumentation?

Because people initially made idiotic and hypocritical arguments against MS. Those are the only arguments that Eugenia responded to, so stop picking fights.

> How can a company trust Microsoft any more with all their bugs and security issues.

> Having to patch and plug every other day, cost companies so much downtime.

And open source projects do not have the same bugs and security issues? What hole have you been living in for the past ten years?

> They have found out about Microsoft’s spyware and do not want any part of it.

Yes, MS spies on you. At the moment we have absolutely no idea how this is done nor any conclusive evidence that it is being done, but we, who also happen to hate Microsoft while advocating open source platforms, can assure you that they do spy.

Somebody get me a pan before I throw up!

> Why must you keep making excuses for MS. Ballmer uttered BS about “liability”,

> a bunch of people call him on it, and then you rush in to try to divert the subject

> to “everybody limits liability”

She does not make excuses for Microsoft. She simply cannot stand imbeciles who make hypocritical and, frankly, pathetic arguments against Microsoft. Now would you mind reading the thread and awakening your latent reasoning abilities?

> but Ballmer makes me laugh everytime he opens his mouth.

And he looks even more ridiculous than he sounds! He really needs to hire someone else to communicate with the press…

2002-09-24 8:09 pm

Microsoft will never be taken serious in the backend because of their cloaked code. Would you want the air traffic controllers to use NT servers? How about life saving equipment? Financial Markets? Trading markets? Money Transfers? Come on, you all know Windows is a client OS. That’s it.

Well, I’m not sure I’d trust linux either for air traffic control or hospital equipment — but that’s the point of a free market. The best product should be used. I don’t want a 100% linux world any more than a 100% MS world — well, I’d actually take the linux over the MS if I were forced to choose

An earlier poster mentioned “knife the baby” tactics — and that’s the problem. MS won’t stop until there is absolutely nothing but MS software running on every processor on the planet. Period. This is because they are greedy; not evil, not Big Brother-esque. They’re greedy — and the worst part is that their products get better and better, as the years go on, making the linux argument (e.g. uptime, reliability) less of an issue.

Off topic, yes, but I had to vent a little. And, Eugenia, could you not assume that all linux users are *ssholes? You treat us that way, and it’s not very nice.

We all know there are linux trolls here, but there are BeOS trolls and MS trolls and anti-XFree trolls and Pro-XFree trolls and so on. But you always harp on and belittle the mass linux group for the actions of a few virginal 14 year olds with nothing better to do.

2002-09-24 8:19 pm

Everytime I come here, its Microsoft VS the World crap. I’m done with this site. Its over, goodbye thank gawd.

Jes, its always got to be some b*tch fest between you people.

Brother.

2002-09-24 8:23 pm

Well, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft pursues this liability business with further comments about it.

But, I still say it’s just something to say to begin to try and stem the tide of Linux. And, actually, I think it’s Redhat that Microsoft is concerned about. Notice these comments by Ballmer have come out only after Redhat has made their announcements about the corporate workstation and also having, no doubt, seen what

Redhat is doing with the desktop in general (null). I think, for the first time, Microsoft is really going on the attack against Linux – and it’s because of what Redhat is doing.

2002-09-24 8:27 pm

The only reasonable resonse the the idiotic comment by ballmer is, “DANCE MONKEY BOY DANCE.”

2002-09-24 8:37 pm

Nowhere was he quoted as saying he would stomp on or outsmart Linux. He said in order to compete against Linux, they will have to add value. What’s wrong with that? He’s right.

And why do some of you always accuse Eugenia of being anti-Linux? She usually has four Linux distros going at the same time. That doesn’t sound like being anti-Linux to me. I don’t know, but I bet that’s the only OS she has more than one distro of going at one time.

2002-09-24 9:15 pm

While obviously outdated, I beleive this ties in well with what people mentioned about air traffic control software and equipment.

The newest US aircraft Carriers are supposedly running a modified version of Windows 2000. That isn’t to say they haven’t had any problems, I just haven’t heard of them. It’s also entirely possible they got this working without any serious issues. I just wouldn’t want to be the guy installing the service packs.

2002-09-24 9:34 pm

Somewhere, there was a webpage of all the things that MS supposedly innovated and then tells where the technology really came from. Does anyone know where this page is?

After finding it (and subsequently losing it), I wanted to check and see if OLE and Visual Basic (RAD programming) were on the list. Also, where did the concept of a Start menu and ‘Wizards’ come from?

2002-09-24 9:35 pm

Take one example. A user claims that, MS should accept liability for its products. Apparently this user doesn’t know the very basic fact that, without that clause in the software license, no software company can survive. As a matter of fact, nobody can write software. Also there will be no linux either. The user just tries to amuse himself/herself by concentrating on MS only and omitting everythingelse, as if MS is the only company in the wolrd which uses that clause in its products.

No, EVERY software product has this clause. That the problem.

The logic you explain above is exactly why the computer industry sucks. Show me one other industry that maintains zero liability for the products? Cars? Stereos? Houses? Sinks? Dog toys? Shoes? Telephones? NOTHING else out there has the ability to disclaim ALL liability. Only software. Even computer hardware has warranties. The problem with computer hardware warranties is that they are almost 100%nullified by the software “AS IS” clause. Companies know that they have no responsibility to the user for software problems and the easiest way to disclaim responsibility for hardware is to blame it on software problems. Ta-da!

It is INSANE to suggest that a warranty would make it impossible to profitably design and sell software. INSANE! The reason it cannot be done RIGHT NOW is that the quality of the product today is IN THE TOILET. No kidding you couldn’t be profitable by being held liable for something that is mostly broken.

The solution is NOT to keep repeating the same mindless slogans and FUD about how “it’s not possible to have software warranties.” The solution is to correct the damn problem!

Make products that work. Design systems that interact predictably. Create open standards that are enforced. Most other industries work this way, folks.

HELLO??

2002-09-24 9:58 pm

>> I dreamed I could actually bill people for all of my time that they have wasted with stupid, anti-MS messages. But then I awoke. *sigh*<<

it was a joke guy. besides i didnt make you read my post and windows has on occassion wasted my time and work crashing.

and if you say i should use win2000 or xp, i say if you’re buying im using =D

2002-09-24 10:18 pm

I’m sensing quite a bit of anger and hostility towards Microsoft and its licensing practices. This of course does not seem to be sensical behavior. Microsoft does not dislike any individuals because they are individuals. Microsoft is a company. They are in the business of making money for their stock holders. That is what publicly traded companies do.

Nothing MS does is in an attempt to personally afront anyone else. It is a very competitive business though, and the “Crush the competition” mentality is very common among employees and management alike. The US economy is designed to be condusive to ultra-competitive capitalism. That is just the nature of the beast, and MS fits in very well to that environment.

If you had the chance to meet any handful of employees who work at MS, you’d probably find that they are generally smart, honest, and hard working people. They don’t mean other people ill because of thier belifs, in fact MS sponsors one of the most diversity accepting work environments anywhere. You’d also find that MS people will argue about anything, and need to have everything proven to them. It is all part and partial; critical thinking is just a way of life in Redmond.

Linux has the potential to become a big platform competitor. For this reason, Linux and its partner OS technologies are being targeted by MS. The Linux platform is being targeted on a professional level, and yet some people believe it is necessary to respond to that challenge with personal affronts on Microsoft and the people that work there.

At the end of the day, it is all just software. The most important thing is that you have a warm place to live, and food for your children.

2002-09-24 10:29 pm

..entirely from this thread after her rankling was proven to be misplaced.

Shoulda read a little closer, now you wouldn’t have to feel sheepish.

2002-09-24 10:43 pm

This is another reason why we dont want the BeOS replacement to be a linux kernel …

2002-09-24 10:49 pm

> And, Eugenia, could you not assume that all linux users are *ssholes? You treat us

> that way, and it’s not very nice.

I do not recall anything of the sort. She merely replied to a few *ssholes who happened to be Linux users bashing Microsoft.

Maybe you could do us a favor and stop assuming that Eugenia is an *sshole?

> We all know there are linux trolls here, but there are BeOS trolls and MS trolls and

> anti-XFree trolls and Pro-XFree trolls and so on.

Again, I do not recall her saying anything to the contrary.

> But you always harp on and belittle the mass linux group for the actions of a few

> virginal 14 year olds with nothing better to do.

Now, now. There is no reason to bring sex into the argument.

> And why do some of you always accuse Eugenia of being anti-Linux?

Who knows. Most likely an allergic reaction to the truth caused by a heightened emotional state over the prospect of having free sex…er, software.

> it was a joke guy. besides i didnt make you read my post and windows has on

> occassion wasted my time and work crashing.

I know, but we have enough “I am too stupid to know that coffee is hot” lawsuits that the joke is not very funny anymore. 🙁

> ..entirely from this thread after her rankling was proven to be misplaced.

I think that she just gave up dealing with wisecracks made by people who could not be bothered to read the _few_ posts to which she was _actually_ responding. Here is what happened. Several people began bashing Microsoft because its licenses contain disclaimers. The problem: almost any other important piece of software has basically the same disclaimers. Which means that those who were bashing Microsoft because of the disclaimers were being hypocrites. End of story.

2002-09-24 10:52 pm

MysticTaco, I agree with you. The whole point I’ve been trying to make is that Microsoft is apparently viewing Linux as a real contender and, as I said, like any company, is trying to put out why their product is better. I mean, it’s mostly all spin anyway, but that’s business. To me, the importance of what Ballmer said is that Microsoft is, for the first time in a real sense, acknowledging Linux. I can’t wait to see what happens next! 🙂 This liability stuff is just spin.

2002-09-24 11:03 pm

I think you are, you are afterall always defending them. MS and everybody that’s ever worked there should apologize for making the shit which is DOS-WinME and for their horrible business tactics. NEtscape, Corel, Apple area all victims of MS, but I don’t give a monkey’s balls about apple anyway.

As more companies and advocates unite behind opensource/linux, they’ll be able to stomp out that malignant tumor called microsoft.

2002-09-25 12:14 am

I am a lawyer in Australia. I do not profess to know the details of the law in the USA or Europe, however, I do know the law here. It is fairly straightforward stuff and I assume that it is similar in most western countries.

A lot of the disclaimers in these licence agreements are void. We have statutes which limit the ways in which manufacturers (including software manufacturers) can limit their liability. They have implied an inalienable obligations to produce a product of merchantable quality which is fit for its purpose. If they do not I bet you could sue them for breach of contract. There are other warranties too that I won’t go into now.

The point is that most companies disclaim all liability for everything for two purposes: (1) to discourage claims from people who don’t know the law, and (2) to give them something to argue about should it ever come to court, thereby deep-pocketing the plaintiff. Simple as that.

2002-09-25 12:25 am

Optic Mouse that doesn’t require a special pad

The Prophet,

People keep mentioning that ms is spying on everyone, but I’ve never seen any proof. Please provide some or shut your cakehole. Also only a handful of governments are switching to linux, so don’t make it seem like the entire world is. Even some that bitch about ms (like china) still use windows on 90+% of their computers. btw if your so worried about being spied on legally (i.e. magic lantern, nsa backdoors) then move to a cave and give up all electionics, because otherwise the government can spy on you if a judge signs an order (which would be needed to use magic lantern).

Eugenia,

What are the expiration period on the site cookies? I’ve had to re-do all my thread collapsing, mark all read, etc. twice in the last 2 months.

2002-09-25 12:27 am

Out of the many nominations for microsoft innovations, the ones that made the list:

* Microsoft BOB [accepted]

* Talking Paper Clip [accepted]

Innovations that Microsoft claimed to invent but really copied from other companies:

* Auto/hiding task bar [rejected]

* CD-ROM Autorun [rejected] UPDATE

* ClearType [rejected]

* Excel/Multiplan [rejected]

* Hypertext Help [rejected]

* VFAT Filing System [rejected]

* Word for DOS [rejected]

Things that haven’t yet been proven to be more instances of Microsoft theft:

* Customizable Tool Palettes [pending] (QPW, others)

* Favorites Icon in Internet Explorer 5 NEW (an icon?!?)

* Infra-red Mouse [pending] NEW (no. try Sun, others!)

* IntelliMouse [pending] (many other fancy mice before)

* QBASIC engine [pending] (copy of Turbo Basic)

* Microsoft Smartcard [pending] (copied from Europe)

* Natural Keyboard [pending] (copied from many)

* Pivot Table [rejected] (Lotus)

* RTF (Rich Text) File format [pending] UPDATE (many)

* Tabbed Window View [pending] UPDATE (Quattro Pro Win)

* Visual Studio Codesense Engine [pending] NEW (many)

So, at the end of the day, Microsoft is just a big brute. They steal, they lie, they cheat.

They are an illegal monopoly. They use the power of this monopoly to crush innovation.

Time for them to get cut down to size. Time for the forces of good to strike against the evil empire. Let us hope the government opts out of their partnership with evil and does good by the people.

#p

2002-09-25 12:36 am

> I think you are, you are afterall always defending them.

They are always being assaulted by idiots like yourself.

> The point is that most companies disclaim all liability for everything for two purposes:

> (1) to discourage claims from people who don’t know the law, and (2) to give them something

> to argue about should it ever come to court, thereby deep-pocketing the plaintiff. Simple

> as that.

Makes sense! I never thought of it in that way before.

> Time for them to get cut down to size. Time for the forces of good to strike against the

> evil empire. Let us hope the government opts out of their partnership with evil and does

> good by the people.

Luke! May the GPL be with you. – Han Torvaldis, Code Wars

2002-09-25 12:39 am

I forgot to mention I’ve used ms support, and it didn’t cost me anything. It was a problem with a controller and windows 98, I called the manufacturer and they were no help so on a whim I went to ms’ support site and they had live chat help. Sure I was “on hold” for 15 minutes or so but it was free and even though they couldn’t help I was with em for a while. btw a couple weeks later I got an email explaining the problem was traced back to a driver and they told the manufacturer who fixed the problem and released a new driver. Of course by then I’d just bought a different controller.

2002-09-25 12:41 am

I love when anti ms people get so stirred up they act like ms isn’t just a company out to make a profit, but an actual evil entitiy that the forces of good must destroy. I always picture nordwick going after the boss from helpdesk.

2002-09-25 1:17 am

From the infoworld article:

“Microsoft’s share of new server operating environment license shipments grew from just under 42 percent in 2000 to nearly 49 percent in 2001”

This wouldn’t have anything to do with the BSA (Business Software Alliance) sending those ‘polite’ notices in the mail for software audtis would it? That’s a great way to boost sales and provide employee motivation.

In terms of the legal liability w/ Linux and other Open Source software and I emphasize the following would *never* stand up in court: I think that there is implied notion in both commercial and open source software, wether covered by warranty or not, that software is bound to fail but it will work ideally in a majority of the time.

If software is being used mission critical applications (nucular power plants, military, etc), then its expected that software will be tested more extensively and will never be absolutely relied upon 100% of the time.

Obviously, MS has the resources to test software extensively and produce fixes which are tested on a large number of computers with different configurations in a controlled environment. Open Source is able to do this, but most bug reports seem to be posted to newsgroups or mailing lists. Its done its job but perhaps there are better ways to test multitues of configurations reliably. This would at least give opensource some way to notch up against MS.

2002-09-25 1:52 am

You mind backing up say even half of that post with hard evidence or are you just going to give another bizarre defense like “very few people understand true prophecy.” Because quite frankly the only thing that you seemed to have left out of that post is that Bill Gates is some alien from Jupiter who is controlling the government in an attempt to enslave us all before the rest of his species comes and invades the earth.

I am not a fanatic/zealot for anything and anyone. This is why I run OSNews and not linuxnews or MsNews. I open my eyes and I don’t bash people for whatever, just for the fun of it. I am trying to be open minded.

That is my difference from you Alex.

2002-09-25 2:10 am

Bill Gates is some alien from Jupiter who is controlling the government in an attempt to enslave us all before the rest of his species comes and invades the earth.

That’s not true, but he does lie about wearing a toupee. If he lies about that, what else is he lying about? Isn’t lying evil?

2002-09-25 2:14 am

I think you dont, you do afterall always suffer from cranial-rectal inversion. You should apologize for making the shity posts such as the one cited below and for wasting everyone’s time. I, Mystic Taco, Null Pointer, Eugenia, and most other level headed readers are all victims of your idiocy, but unlike you I give a monkey’s ball about making sense.

>>I think you are, you are afterall always defending them. MS and everybody that’s ever worked there should apologize for making the shit which is DOS-WinME and for their horrible business tactics. NEtscape, Corel, Apple area all victims of MS, but I don’t give a monkey’s balls about apple anyway.<<

2002-09-25 2:25 am

Don’t underestimate how low microsoft will go. This “MVP” rubbish is just like http://www.kmartforever.com type propganda. A “fan club” type thing. Publicity CRAP.

Last time microsoft said an OS was a threat, Be Inc was forced out of business.

Jace the problem in software industry is that, there is no way to guarantee that a program will function as its intended purpose.

As you may know the halting problem in computer science, the problem with software is that there is no easy way to guarantee that the program will work or not.

For shoes, cars you can build robots to check everything to make sure that they are not defective, but for software by the law of science, you can not build such things. Because the halting problems says that there are certain problems in the world which can not be decided by a Turing machine, in other words you can not write programs for every problem in the world. This is especially true for software verification.

To sum up, please study some computer science, and try to understand why software can not be compared with other products for liability issues.

2002-09-25 3:01 am

>>>As IBM invested in Be. As IBM invested in linux projects.

>>>And, as IBM and other hardware vendors may turn on Microsoft, and stage the greatest coup de etat the industry has ever seen. Chew on that, WeenieDOS lovers.

IBM never invested in BE. Hardware vendors are OS whores — all the major set-top box makers, Point of Sales makers still support and sell embedded DOS products.

In fact, the annual sales of embedded DOS products today are tens and hundreds times bigger than BeOS’s annual sales.

2002-09-25 3:30 am

This is not about good and evil. Not about technical superiority. Not about “outsmarting” anyone.

This about what’s in MS’s interest, and what’s in everyone else’s interest.

MS has a very strong and clear interest in there being no alternative to the ubiquitous, ever present Windows — to owning the common language of PCs. You know what I am talking about: everyone has to use it because everyone else is using it.

Virtually everyone else has an interest in something free like unix being the common language. This includes the Oracles, IBMs, Novells, etc. Who might like to be in MS’s shoes but aren’t, so they will take the unix thing as a second best.

And while there are many MS defenders, I wonder how much their resume is padded with MS experience? These MVPs are a prime example.

2002-09-25 3:35 am

It’s over, we just have to go through the death throes of it.

By it I mean the windows dominance. It’s over. Christ, even if it didn’t happen here, the Chinese, French, German, etc. are going to make sure it happens.

Bill and Ballmer have met their match and lost.

2002-09-25 5:23 am

Ever heard about

Microsoft Cops (R) ?

😛

2002-09-25 6:02 am

I think they are better off changing their business model before the server OS market becomes fully commoditized. Simply because

1) Windows can’t really stand in competition with Linux. The only thing it could be Linux is in ease of administration, which could be copied by Linux just as easy.

Plus server adminstrators shouldn’t be admins with the knowlegde of fiev-year-olds 🙂

2) The increasing demand for something cheaper. The emergin markets (READ: markets that are growing) simply can’t afford the high license cost of Windows and UNIX, Linux can easily beat them.

3) The server market is increasingly becoming a services-related market. IBM is fortunate enough to realize this. Microsoft should try to realize this and discontinue Windows slowly or making it a commodity (READ: free), while increase the dependance on services.

🙂

2002-09-25 6:03 am

slackware: This wouldn’t have anything to do with the BSA (Business Software Alliance) sending those ‘polite’ notices in the mail for software audtis would it? That’s a great way to boost sales and provide employee motivation.

Accroading to official BSA numbers, this isn’t the case. Besides, I think Windows is growing, it is just tad hard to count how much Linux is growing to due its nature.

2002-09-25 6:11 am

obelix: Last time microsoft said an OS was a threat, Be Inc was forced out of business.

Firstly, Microsoft press never once mention Be OS. Never once was Be OS mentioned in any Microosft advertisement promoting Windows. Never once. Microsoft didn’t had to, it would be as funny as Intel starting an ad campaign against PowerPC for workstations.

Now, for Linux, things is VERY different. Firstly, NOBODY owns it. They have to make it a law before they can successfully kill Linux. Linux is the power of commodity software. BeOS on the other hand was ran by some half-ass business, and died along with the company.

So there’s the difference.

obelix: As IBM invested in Be. As IBM invested in linux projects.

IBM invested in a lot of projects. Heck, IBM invested in Apple right about the time the PC was released. But IBM didn’t push BeOS like it is pushing Linux now. Did IBM invest 1 billion bucks a year to BeOS, most of it goes to advertising?

So to everyone here: It is very unlikely Microsoft can kill Linux. It makes much more sense that Microosft is actually ran by an evolve form of humans, seeking to prove Darwin’s theory right by eliminating homo sapiens. 🙂

2002-09-25 6:45 am

1) I know it isn’t your real name. If it is, I’m sorry that you were blessed with such an awful one.

2) I guess they haven’t signed the Social Responsibility Charter which forbids the type of actions Microsoft does.

Maybe if companies had a conscience, the Enrons and Worldcoms would have never have happened.

2002-09-25 6:50 am

Matthew Gardiner: Maybe if companies had a conscience, the Enrons and Worldcoms would have never have happened.

Enron and Worldcom happened because of some greedy corporate guys who want money fast, and not the fault of the company itself.

2002-09-25 6:51 am

An earlier poster mentioned “knife the baby” tactics — and that’s the problem. MS won’t stop until there is absolutely nothing but MS software running on every processor on the planet. Period. This is because they are greedy; not evil, not Big Brother-esque. They’re greedy — and the worst part is that their products get better and better, as the years go on, making the linux argument (e.g. uptime, reliability) less of an issue.

—

I guess you haven’t worked in companies who went for the NT hype, and now regret it. Most companies I come accross wished that they never got rid of their old reliable UNIXWare/OpenServer/OpenUNIX or Novell box, which kept ticking for months without an issue.

Microsoft is a hype, + the the fact that most CEO’s are as thick as two short planks and twice as ugly, of course uneducated decisions are made. CEO’s, stick what you are good at, that is nothing, and keep the IS staff making the IS decisions, instead of you stuffing it up in the hope to being Microsoft’s next bumb buddie.

2002-09-25 2:14 pm

Matthew G:

//I guess you haven’t worked in companies who went for the NT hype, and now regret it. Most companies I come accross wished that they never got rid of their old reliable UNIXWare/OpenServer/OpenUNIX or Novell box, which kept ticking for months without an issue//

My company moved from SCO to NT on several servers. You’re mostly right — early NT 4 was a pain. We upgraded to W2K, and the stability ^_skyrocketed_^ in comparison. Administration, usability, also are much easier than before (with SCO).

That said, we still run a mixed shop. W2K is great for some purposes, Linux/UNIX are better for others. I say mix-n-match.

Just two cents.

2002-09-25 3:56 pm

You MS community guys and girls have to work harder to match the energy in the Linux community. We’ll take your contributions and stuff them in our proprietary products. And if in the future you’ll ever want to use your own idea, we’ll sue you hard. Because what is yours is ours and what is ours is not yours.

You MS community guys and girls have to work harder to match the energy in the Linux community. We’ll take the dollars that result from that and stuff them in our bank, about 2 billion dollars every quarter. We will never pay any of it to you or to our shareholders. Because what is yours is ours and what is ours is not yours.

You MS community guys and girls have to work harder to match the energy in the Linux community. If you don’t I cannot make my billion dollars per year, so who has to pay for the new shoes for my kids? Maybe I’ll change the licensing terms for you guys again to extort even more money from you. Because what is yours is ours and what is ours is not yours.

You MS community guys and girls have to work harder to match the energy in the Linux community. Maybe you should work at home as well, what else do you use your evenings for anyway? Coming to think of it, I like that because you’ll have to buy more software from us – can’t have you work in two places on only one license, can we? Because what is yours is ours and what is ours is not yours.

Bye bye now, it was nice to meet all of you. Please keep the dollars flowing.

SB

2002-09-25 4:09 pm

Why do some linux people think money is a bad thing? I wonder how many of them work for free? hey morons you should be paid for your work, if you want to do it for free fine, but don’t yell at those who make a buck.

2002-09-25 4:10 pm

Actually, the company where I work just found something like 50 gigs of porn, ripped dvds, and other whatnot on one of our win2k servers — one which has been quietly used since april for storage by, apparently, over 180,000 users. I can’t believe our it people never noticed the bandwidth usage…

That’s not MS’s fault — it’s our fault for not keeping a closer look and running a tighter ship. But, frankly, had we been running linux or one of those nicely scrutinized BSDs it *might* never have been an issue. Then again, the way my company does things, we’d probably be running redhat 6.2 and no updates.

Anyhow, I want to clarify a couple things I said yesterday. First, with regard to MS’s greed — it’s not by any means unique to MS. It’s a fact of capitalism, just like it’s a fact of multicellular organisms that cancer will eventually develop, given enough time. What bothers me is that the most wealthy company (I think) on the damn planet can’t simply be happy with what they have. Fine — let them do their thing, but they should try to be a little more friendly! Does MS *need* 100% saturation? They’re all wealthier than croesus allready!

Second, with regards to Eugenia. Perhaps I’m sensitive, I don’t know, but having read this forum for a while, I just can’t shake the feeling that she is *very* quick to attack linux folks. That’s all. I gather she doesn’t dislike linux, and frankly I don’t care — what we run is our own damn business. I just don’t think it’s particularly nice that if a linux troll makes some retarded anti-ms statement Eugenia will rip all linux users a new one; but when pro-<whatever> troll does the same, we hear nothing, or damn little. And of course, I could be wrong anyway. I don’t read this site all day long — I do have a job.

And, finally, when I called the linux trolls 14 year old virgins, I probably should have said 28 year old virgins.

Thank you for your time

2002-09-25 4:12 pm

For what it’s worth — my company (the rooted one has to reboot its win2k servers, each, *and* our exchange server, once every three days on average. Some more often. That’s unnaceptable.

2002-09-25 4:40 pm

Shamyl:

//my company (the rooted one has to reboot its win2k servers, each, *and* our exchange server, once every three days on average.//

If you have to do that, you’ve got __SERIOUS__ setup problems with your servers, and/or your sysadmins are about as smart as a box of hammers.

Our W2K servers need a reboot …. when a SP tells us we must. Other than that, I think we’ve had an unplanned reboot maybe three times in two years.

2002-09-25 5:00 pm

..so why *shouldn’t* it emphasize that we’re in a “Microsoft vs. the world” mode? What lower state could OS lovers be in than to deal with King Kong every time they turn around?

Really, it’s time that people stop this crap of one guy owning all the OS/hamburger/meat/drug/whatever market. I’m sick of it.

2002-09-25 6:22 pm

> If you have to do that, you’ve got __SERIOUS__ setup problems with your

> servers, and/or your sysadmins are about as smart as a box of hammers.

Experience with Linux does not make one experienced with Windows.

> Our W2K servers need a reboot …. when a SP tells us we must. Other than

> that, I think we’ve had an unplanned reboot maybe three times in two years.

The servers at my Dad’s work have about the same uptime now that they upgraded to Lotus iNotes, but they used to crash all the time when they had Lotus cc:Mail installed. Heh. I would send Dad an email message and he would get it two days later.

My point is that what software you run has as much to do with the server’s performance as the operating system, and even good operating systems can be bogged down with slow, buggy software.

I agree that a properly configured Windows 2000 server is very stable.

2002-09-25 7:12 pm

All that MS is doing here is a marketing scheme. Competition in the market place is alive and well, and that’s what everyone wants right? For years the linux community was just a blip on the map not even considered a “compeditor” by microsoft or any other company. Now Microsoft says that the linux operating system has developed enough to be considered a compeditor in the market place. Congratulations, this is what we wanted all along right? A national stage to show what open source can do. Look at how far it has come. Linx will be competing head to head with microsoft right? isn’t that what we wanted? or did we just want microsoft to die and we just move in and take over? Everything that is worthwhile takes hard work and determination. Just because MS starts a campaign against linux doesn’t mean the end of the world. It means that we have been recognized as a compeditor we’re getting called onto the carpet. It’s going to be time to put our beliefs/money where our mouth is. OK we can bash microsoft, sorry not good enough that’s not going to win marketshare. Develop better more stable products, if they throw more money into the advertising ring than we do we can still overcome. How many of you supported AMD back when their processors were inferior to Intels? I’m sure most of you jumped right on when they released something better though right? and how much advertising did they do on TV? not much from what I remember I think I saw one ad as a matter of fact and that was it. Linux in the past has always had a bad OBE (Out of Box Experience) to the average computer user when it came to installation/configuration. It is getting much better recently. I think I had my Suse 8.0 desktop up in 4 mouse clicks. That’s a far cry from when I was trying to install linux 3 years ago when it was all text base and required some really indepth knowledge of your system, ok for us real wireheads but come on, does your mom know what the vertical refreash on her moniter is? And beyond that that easier it is to install/uninstall software the better. Upgrades on Linux aren’t exactly the easiest things in the world either you know. Windows isn’t always better but they’ve focused on the OBE alot to appeal to the mass public. And that’s what we must now do, along with writing stable, useable aplications. So stop bashing microsoft, we don’t need to waste our time doing that, we need to roll up our sleves and get to work. It’s going to be a long trip to overthrow the current giant in the marketplace but as Lau Tzu once said, a jouney of a thousand miles starts with one step. Let’s start walking.

2002-09-25 9:02 pm

One thing I’ve noticed:

When a typical GPL’ed program’s developer talks about problems, they are either problems, or something the developer can’t get the time to fix.

Often, when Microsoft talks about problems, their spokespeople talk as if the program was meant to work that way; e.g., “This version of Basic cannot “go to” a line with a label”… even though the reference they sell with it says it can. They’ve been that way ever since the Atari days (their product on the Atari was the most bug-ridden piece of crap I have ever used on a computer, and they were very authoritarian about it. The diskette was even copy-protected, because “Atari users steal software.”)

These are the kinds of people who have decided they will unite and “Stomp on Linux.” If we can prove them wrong, I think the world will be a much, much better place for our efforts. They don’t deserve what they have, and still they want more.

2002-09-25 9:08 pm

Bogus, put some blank lines in your posts. I did not even bother to read it because it was so crammed together.

2002-09-26 6:19 am

Jace the problem in software industry is that, there is no way to guarantee that a program will function as its intended purpose.

Sure there is. You design with a set number of variables and then test them. The OS has to be designed well and we don’t have such an OS today. The closest thing we get to software that can be garanteed is something like a Palm unit (prior to the user adding thier own software from downloads). My Palm has never crashed in five years of use. Never reset either (which is the same as reboot). Because of the installable software issue, this OS does not count.

As you may know the halting problem in computer science, the problem with software is that there is no easy way to guarantee that the program will work or not.

I’m unfamiliar with such a term.

For shoes, cars you can build robots to check everything to make sure that they are not defective, but for software by the law of science, you can not build such things. Because the halting problems says that there are certain problems in the world which can not be decided by a Turing machine, in other words you can not write programs for every problem in the world. This is especially true for software verification.

Every problem in the world? They don’t test shoes that way either. As I said, you need to limit the variables and variations so that there is a set number of tests that can be done and checked. You must understand that I am not talking about today’s badly designed software. I am talking about the potential to design software that does not have organic and unpredictable reactions because it is designed to limit variables and interactions from the start.

To sum up, please study some computer science, and try to understand why software can not be compared with other products for liability issues.

You’re talking about today’s belief of computers. Not what they should and COULD be. If you have some links to share with me so that I can read whatever it was that you read to make you believe this, then please offer them. You are the only person that even responded to my comments. Most people are so blind to this situation that they don’t understand what the hell I am talking about. Thanks for responding.